The Chaos Loop

by Peter Lerangis

  Corey shrugged. “Worth a try, I guess.”

  Over Leila’s shoulder, she heard a bellowing laugh from Alfred Roller. His circle of fans laughed with him. Leila knew she had to act fast before he turned completely around and saw Hitler’s shabby-looking figure.

  She waved in Hitler’s direction. “Hey! Here we are!”

  Hitler’s face relaxed slightly at the sight of her and Corey. He bounded toward them across the room, the cuffs of his pants flapping.

  “I think I see fleas,” Corey said.

  “Be nice,” Leila murmured. “Make him feel comfortable.”

  “Those sure are . . . shiny shoes!” Corey called out.

  “Thank you,” Hitler replied. “I’m afraid the rest is not so . . . beautiful? But it is best I can do. I borrow from my friend—”

  “Sssshhh, no worries.” Leila took him by the arm and walked him quickly toward the green room door. “Let’s see if we can spruce you up.”

  Hitler sputtered in confusion, but Leila knocked on the door and asked to speak to Fritzie and Lotte. In a few moments Fritzie appeared, along with a stout, older woman who gasped at the sight of Adolf Hitler’s outfit. Leila explained the situation to them. Fritzie listened with a kind, concerned smile. Then he turned to the older woman, who nodded curtly and whisked the poorly dressed guy inside.

  “What did Fritzie say to her?” Corey asked.

  “That he owed Hitler a favor,” Leila replied. “My great-grandfather is a gem. He’s taking this seriously. He feels guilty about what Otto did last night.”

  Ten minutes later, Hitler emerged wearing a clean black suit that almost fit him. And a big, radiant smile. There wasn’t much they could do about the hair, but he was standing up straighter. And Leila no longer felt like doubling over with laughter. “Very nice,” she said. “And guess who is standing next to the piano? I hope you have your letter of introduction.”

  Hitler’s eyes went wide with panic. Then he felt his pants pocket and exhaled. “Yes. I am ready.”

  As Fritzie stood by the piano, he was joined by a cellist, a violinist, and a clarinetist. They bowed, and everyone applauded in greeting. Leila brought Hitler right up close to Alfred Roller.

  The crowd quieted as the group began playing a soft quartet. Hitler smiled. “Ahh, Brahms,” he said, in Roller’s direction.

  “Brahms, pah!” Roller spat, with a foul sneer. “Seine Musik ist bürgerlicher Müll.”

  “What does that mean?” Corey whispered.

  “He doesn’t like Brahms’s music,” Leila answered.

  Hitler seemed to shrink. He stayed silent for the rest of the piece.

  When it was over, the entire ballroom burst into applause. Roller, eyeing the buffet table, took the opportunity to get himself some food.

  In German, Leila urged Hitler to follow. “I—I am not hungry,” he replied.

  “Go talk to Roller,” Corey urged him. “There’s no one else at the table. Be confident.”

  Hitler nodded and straightened himself out. With his shoulders flung back, he approached the buffet table. Leila moved closer, but she didn’t want to be obvious. The next piece of music was beginning, and she could only catch snatches of conversation. The weather. The food. The tune.

  Hitler’s right hand seemed glued to the side of his pants. But soon it was slipping into his pocket, where he began pulling out a sheet of paper. “Yes . . . here we go,” Leila murmured.

  Now Hitler was holding out the letter of introduction and chattering away. Roller had speared a thick bratwurst and was chomping on it over a china plate. He glanced up as if Hitler were a hovering fruit fly. Finally, placing his plate down, Roller pulled a pair of glasses from his jacket pocket and took the note.

  “He. Is. Reading it!” Leila squealed. She fought to stifle her voice, but she wanted to jump up and down.

  “This is epic,” Corey said.

  “It’s like . . . like taking the bullets out of John Wilkes Booth’s gun,” Leila gushed. “Like locking up the nine-eleven hijackers at Logan Airport before boarding.” She glanced back toward Fritzie and started to cry. “He has no idea what’s happening right now. But he’s going to be okay. This is amazing. He’ll have a family, and they’ll be okay too. Maybe we’ll be listening to his recordings from Carnegie Hall.”

  “Uh . . . not so fast . . .” Corey said.

  Leila spun back around. Roller was scowling. Asking Hitler pointed questions about his art experience. Hitler’s face was red now, with sweat beading around his forehead. Whatever confidence he’d had was gone.

  “Translate!” Corey whispered.

  “He’s yelling at Hitler. . . . How dare he bother him at a social event? . . . How can he judge a man’s work if he can’t see a sample? . . . Oh boy, this is not working.”

  Before she could finish, Corey was limping to the back of the hall as fast as his aching back could take him. He disappeared into the green room and emerged a few seconds later holding Hitler’s painting. Leila intercepted him on the way to the buffet table. “What are you doing?” she demanded.

  “Saving Hitler’s butt.” Swerving around Leila, he shouted, “Herr Roller, look!”

  Hitler nearly jumped out of his shoes. He stared at the painting as if it were about to explode.

  Roller popped a cheese cube into his mouth and gave Corey an annoyed glance. As his eyes focused on the painting, Leila began to spin a story aloud to him. In German. Making it up as she went along.

  She and Corey were students in the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts “youth department” . . . Herr Adolf Hitler was their teacher. . . . He was the finest artist they had met. . . . He dreamed of being a scenic designer. . . . He spoke about Alfred Roller as “a genius like the world had never seen.”

  She had never lied so much in her life.

  Corey looked at her with his mouth hanging open. But Hitler began to nod. To smile and play along. “Nein, nein . . .” he murmured modestly. “Liebe, süßes Mädchen.”

  (No, no. Dear, sweet girl.)

  Alfred Roller peered over the top of his glasses frame, examining the painting carefully. “Hmm . . . mm-hmm . . .”

  Leila stopped talking. She tried to read Roller’s expression but couldn’t.

  Finally Roller grabbed a drink from the table and chugged some of it down. Giving Hitler a gruff look, he began speaking in German.

  “What’s he saying?” Corey whispered.

  Leila listened carefully. “He’s saying the work is old-fashioned . . . not at all Roller’s style. But the sense of color is . . . admirable. It has a feeling of life . . . an emotional connection . . . and some other arty technical stuff I don’t understand. Now he’s asking if Hitler likes Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele. . . .”

  “Those are the really abstract artists?” Corey said.

  “Right . . .” Leila replied. “So Hitler’s, like, no, sorry, he’s not a big fan, but he thinks that kind of style works . . . when it’s onstage.”

  Corey smiled. “Whoa. Smooth. Maybe he’s not as dumb as we think.”

  Roller stared at Hitler blankly for a long time. Then he let out what could have been a cough or a laugh, Leila wasn’t sure. He glanced at the painting again, then handed it back to Corey. Heading back toward the piano, he grumbled over his shoulder to Hitler, “Wir sehen uns am Montag pünktlich um acht Uhr in meinem Büro. Seien Sie bereit zu arbeiten.”

  Hitler grabbed the edge of the table.

  “What? What?” Corey said.

  Leila could barely get the words out. “He said, ‘I will see you in my office at eight sharp Monday morning. Be prepared to work.’ And you, Corey Fletcher, are a genius. That’s me talking.”

  “Aaaaaaaahh!” Corey screamed.

  “Aaaaaaaahh!” Leila screamed.

  They turned toward Hitler. But he was Hitler, so the idea of hugging him was off the table. “Herzlichen Glückwunsch,” Leila said. “Congratulations.”

  “I think,” Corey said, “your future just changed.”


  “Yes.” Hitler’s eyes were full of tears. “And . . . I have you to thank. But . . .” His voice trailed off, as he glanced at the painting Corey had brought out.

  “But what?” Leila said.

  “That painting,” he said. “I did not paint that.”

  Leila’s mouth dropped open in surprise.

  Corey thought of Fritzie’s words the night before. Otto knows this man by the bridge. Does not like him. He sells art on streets. Art painted by famous artists. For high money. But is not really the artist work.

  “It’s bootleg?” Corey said.

  Hitler looked at Leila. “Was bedeutet ‘bootleg’?”

  Leila shook her head and tried not to laugh. Behind her, Roller was calling to Hitler, gesturing toward his groupies, who were looking curiously at the new apprentice.

  “Don’t worry,” Leila said. “Your secret is safe with us.”

  Corey smiled. No one would ever have to know. Sometimes history was made with little lies.

  As Hitler walked back toward Roller, he looked like he’d gained another inch in height. Corey still hated him.

  That would never change.

  “Did this really just happen?” Leila said softly.

  “It did,” Corey said, repeating it as if it would go away. “It did!”

  “I . . . I don’t . . . I can’t . . .” Leila stammered.

  “Let’s go,” Corey replied. “I don’t want to spend another second in his sight.”

  As he reached into his pocket and grabbed onto some twenty-first century coins, Leila touched his shoulder.

  25

  Everything resets.

  This was Corey’s first thought as his eyes opened in Leila’s room. When you change the past and come back, you’re on a different timeline. Everything that has happened between then and now is affected. So when you return, there is no knowing what to expect.

  Except the condition of Corey’s back. Which was in utter, prickly-skin, pounding-head, teeth-grinding pain.

  “Ohhhhhhh . . .” he moaned.

  “We . . . we did it,” Leila said. “Corey, we did it!”

  Leila was still holding his shoulder. And Corey was still gripping the fistful of coins from the present, which had brought them back to where they started.

  “Here,” he said, thrusting the coins toward Leila. “My fortune for a healed back.”

  Leila let out a scream of excitement. “I don’t believe this. Corey, do you realize what we just did? You are the most awesome human being who ever lived!”

  She scooped him up in a hug, and he screamed.

  “Oh! I’m so sorry!” Leila let go of him and spun to the window, throwing it open. “You need fresh air. We’ll get you to a doctor. We’ll do MRIs. X-rays. The best medications. A back transplant. Maybe back transplants are possible nowadays!”

  “Back transplant?”

  “Who knows? We changed time in a huge way, Corey! I’m going to call your papou and ask him to come over. He has to know about this. We need to tell him in person.” She pulled out her phone and quickly called Corey’s grandfather. “Hi, Papou—I’m so glad you’re there—it’s Leila—we did it we did it please come over right away—we have so much to report—Corey is amazing!”

  “Right . . . right . . . amazing . . .” Corey was trying to let it sink in. But it didn’t feel real yet. “Don’t you think we ought to check what happened? You know, after Roller hired Hitler?”

  “Of course! Of course! Oh. I have to calm down.” Leila shoved her phone in her pocket. She was practically dancing across the room. Her words were flying out at warp speed. “But one thing we know, Corey. Hitler never comes to power. Because of us, millions of people live! Scientists and doctors and shopkeepers and pop stars, and . . . and astronauts. Whatever. Who knows what things have happened. Maybe cancer is cured. Maybe New York City is now a suburb of Valley Stream—”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I don’t know! I’m just happy! Look! The good things didn’t change. Central Park still exists, the air smells amazing, my family is still in the same apartment—”

  Leila’s door cracked open and her mom peeked in. “Is everything okay?”

  “Mom! Mom! You’re still Mom! Everything is awesome!” Leila said.

  “Have you been bingeing on coffee ice cream again?” Mrs. Sharp asked.

  “Mom! Mom! I have something I want to ask you. Some questions about history. Is that okay? It’s for . . . a school project.”

  “Sure, sweetie,” her mom said, sitting on the bed. “But I’m not great at history.”

  Did anything seem different? Corey wondered. Was her hair different? Her clothes? He wished he paid attention to things like that.

  Leila shook the nervousness out of her hands. Corey could see her trying desperately to focus. To shovel out the adrenaline from her bloodstream. “Okay. Mom, did World War II happen?”

  “Well, that’s an easy one,” she answered with a laugh. “Of course it did. Are these trick questions?”

  “No.” Leila swallowed hard. Corey sat next to her, putting his hand on her shoulder. “Mom . . . who were the Allies fighting in World War II? And what were the names of the leaders?”

  “Japan,” her mom said. “Under Emperor Hirohito . . . Wasn’t that his name?”

  “Yes,” Leila said. “Yes, and . . . ?”

  “Germany, of course. Under Hitler.”

  Wham.

  Her words hung in the air like a bad stink. The war had begun in 1939. The Allies had joined it in 1941. Decades after Corey and Leila had left Vienna.

  Corey could have tripled the pain in his back and it wouldn’t have compared to how this felt.

  “A-A-Adolf Hitler?” Corey said numbly.

  “Of course,” Ms. Sharp said.

  “Tell me what he did, Mom,” Leila went on. “Tell me about the Nazis. . . .”

  Corey and Leila listened numbly as her mom began to list historical events.

  It was all there.

  Kristallnacht, the “shattering of glass,” when the Nazis smashed down the shops run by Jews. That was there.

  The roundups of Jews were there.

  The camps.

  The battles.

  D-Day.

  The Liberation.

  How?

  How could this have happened?

  Leila kept asking questions—how many people died? How bad was it?—but after a while, Corey tuned it all out.

  At some point the doorbell rang, but Corey barely noticed. He retreated to the corner and sat against the wall. The support made his back feel better. Leila’s phone charger was on the windowsill within reach, so he plugged it into his dying phone.

  Taking a deep breath, he did a quick search. Everything about the war, Nazis, and Hitler looked the same. Which didn’t make any sense. It couldn’t be exactly the same.

  Could it?

  Finally he found an article about Hitler’s youth that he recognized right away. He’d read this before. It had taught him about Hitler’s three tries to meet Roller. It had described the failure. The burned letter.

  With a creeping, dry-mouthed feeling, he read it carefully.

  It hadn’t worked. The plan hadn’t worked after all that.

  He must have been staring at the text for a long, long time, because when he looked up, Leila was sitting with Papou. Her mom had left, and Leila was filling in the old man on the details. Corey hadn’t even noticed his own grandfather entering.

  “Hi, Papou,” Corey said. “Did you hear what happened?”

  “I did.” The old man sat next to Corey and put his arm around his shoulders. He was wearing a soft cashmere sweater and it felt nice. “How are you, paithaki mou?”

  “I’m going to go back,” Corey said numbly.

  “Mom’s ordering brunch from the Mila Café,” Leila said. “It’ll be here soon.”

  “I didn’t change the world, Papou,” Corey said. “Nothing changed. Hitler lasted three days in his job, and then
Roller fired him, and everything stayed the same.”

  “Wait, what? That’s impossible!” Leila took the phone, still plugged in, and read the screen, too. Then she started tapping furiously, looking for more sources. “Holocaust . . . Alfred Roller . . . no . . . it can’t be. . . .”

  “We thought we’d de-Hitlered Hitler,” Corey said.

  “You set quite a task for yourself,” Papou remarked.

  Leila was crying now, but Corey was more angry than sad. “I could have done it, Papou. I had two good chances. I blew our chance to get him in Munich in nineteen thirty-nine, because I tried to protect someone named Maria who was helping us. In nineteen oh eight I saved Hitler’s life by the river because I didn’t know it was Hitler. Then I caused him to be fired from a job I helped him get, which would have changed his life and changed the world—”

  “You didn’t cause him to be fired, Corey!” Leila said.

  “Yes, I did!” Corey insisted. “I butted in and gave Roller that dumb painting that really wasn’t Hitler’s work.”

  “But Hitler lied to you! He said it was his work! You didn’t know!” Leila said. “Besides, Roller was about to blow him off when you stepped in. Without you, Hitler wouldn’t have been hired at all.”

  “A lot of good that did,” Corey said. “I’m a Throwback, Leila. I’m supposed to change things, remember? I have a superpower. And I even had you to help me. Why didn’t I just bash him over the head myself while we had a chance?”

  “Because you’re a human being,” Papou said. “You did things you thought were right.”

  Corey stared out the window. Cars sped by on Central Park West, and someone was arguing about a parking space. Nothing was different. He knew he should have felt comforted by that, after the dangers of time travel. But all he felt was a knot in his stomach growing tighter and tighter.

  “I’m going to go back to meet Hitler again,” he murmured. “With a crowbar.”

  “And what if that doesn’t work?” Leila said. “What if you get caught and die? This is hard to do, Corey. And you only have a limited number of tries anyway.”